Beautiful Lily

Heart of the matter

Belle finally slept after days of not sleeping. She had slept in. It was Monday morning and she knew of her obligations to open the library doors, but she also needed this day and decided to call in sick. She needed time to think and time to...

She heard a knock at her apartment door. She left her bed and went to the door.

"Belle, sweetheart, it's me," Rumple called through the door. As much as she wanted to be disgusted by his actions from yesterday, she really needed him and he came in her hour of need. "Darling, I am really sorry."

Belle wasn't fully dressed and she didn't care. She went to bed wearing one of his extra dress shirts she had kept in the closet of the apartment. Besides the underwear she was still wearing, she was exposed from the waist down. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her naked before, so it was of no shame or surprise to him when she opened the door and he saw her slightly exposed.

She opened the door wider granting him passage into the tiny apartment unit. The door opened immediately into the kitchen and dining table, with the bedroom being the one additional room which had a bathroom inside.

When she opened the door, he didn't care about how she dressed or the tiny apartment. He immediately came forward and hugged her where she stood. He continued apologizing, "I am so so sorry for my ghastly behavior yesterday. I was wrong. It took me a while to understand everything, but I know what it is that you're going through."

"You do?" she said with tears in her eyes. He took a step back from her and with love in his eyes he smiled and said, "We're pregnant, aren't we?"

Belle began crying at the sound of those words coming from his mouth, "You know?"

He beamed back at her, "I think I've known about her for some time."

"Her?" she gasped clutching her mouth. Her heart was swelling, "A girl? All this time... and you didn't tell me?"

"Oh... yeah," he chuckled to himself, forgetting that she wasn't the one that had been having these nightly visions for the past month. And so he told her. "Well, it's a leap. You see, I've been having this same dream every night since Elsa's return. It wasn't until recently that I realized that they weren't dreams, but an insight into the future; our future. But you see, seeing into the future isn't an easy gift. I confess... having it can be a torment. Because sometimes, knowing too much of something can be a bad thing. Some people have a difficult time accepting truths and knowing those truths can be a burden.

"When I have these visions, they're these jumbled fragments of imagery, like puzzle pieces; all pertinent, meaningful and symbolic. And each piece, each vision can be misinterpreted. So it's always difficult to read the future and see the big picture, because the price is that the future is never what you think. So, I didn't mention it before because... well, because it's not reliable.

"In this vision I have... I'm in the murky dwellings of a pond. I see a plant sprouting from the dark depths and I see it reach for sunlight... it breaches the water's surface and blossoms into a beautiful Lily flower. And while it continues to bask in the warm glow of sunlight, I see you sitting next to it on the edge of the pond, smiling... telling me that you know something; that you have good news to tell me. And then you take my hand..." Rumple said, taking her hand and placing it over her heart. "...and place it over your heart, telling me that there's a price you pay. And then you disappear, leaving me with nothing but this beautiful lily flower."

"And you understood everything that was happening, just from that dream?"

"Not at first, but you've left me clues. Clues that I hadn't picked up on or understood until recently."